


tis the saison

by bossymarmalade (maggie), maggie



Series: the eradication of seemingly incurable sadness [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Holidays, M/M, Office Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21598957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/maggie
Summary: Nobody much cares for holiday parties, but everybody's got to go to them nevertheless. Tommy Shelby's no exception, much as he would like to be.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Series: the eradication of seemingly incurable sadness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557283
Comments: 1
Kudos: 83
Collections: Sholomons Prompt Fest 2019





	tis the saison

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [boundinshallows (museme87)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/museme87/pseuds/boundinshallows) in the [Sholomons_Prompt_Fest_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Sholomons_Prompt_Fest_2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:** _Modern AU. "You're in my phone as 'that loser who keeps texting me,' and I'm in your phone as 'how about no.'"_
> 
> takes place in the same modern au verse as [eggplant peach question mark](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Sholomons_Prompt_Fest_2019/works/21575698)

"Tell me one more time that you don't want to go, Tommy Shelby, and I'll not only send Arthur round to drag you there, I'll buy you a Christmas jumper with mistletoe pinned to the hem and sit back and laugh at the thought of you jumping around the room like a scalded cat trying to avoid being kissed on the cock."

"Christ  _ Almighty _ , Pol." Tommy rubbed his fingers over his eyebrows, using the heels of his shoes -- currently hooked up on the edge of his desk -- to drag his wheeled office chair forward. "Giving me a little too much credit, aren't you?"

"Giving the other attendees of the liquor board holiday party too little, more like it." Polly's voice sounded amused and warm, even over the tinny speakerphone. "Thomas, you know I usually take on party duties, but it simply can't be helped this year. You're going to have to represent for us. It won't be so bad! How many distributors can you have slept with already?"

Tommy felt it was quite admirable that he had the grace to just let silence stretch between him and speakerphone Polly in answer to that question. Pol, however, didn't seem to share his viewpoint on that.

"Oh, hellfire, Tommy! It's a wonder you get any fucking work done at all, I swear to God."

"Look, I'll go, I'll go. I won't like it, but I'll go." He used his heels to push himself away from the desk, drag himself close again, bony knees accordioning up on each approach as he chewed a thumbnail and mentally totted up the likely suspects he'd be running into over fusion dim sum appetizers and rounds of whatever vodka blended drinks were on the themed menu. "Might even make it out of there unscathed."

"You're a horror." Polly paused, and then said, "--Alfie Solomons is going to be there this year. He said since we were clear that it's a holiday party and not a Christmas party, he felt at peace in his devotions with dipping a toe in the secular festivities. He literally said those words."

Tommy grunted, thumping one shoe down onto the floor. "So what? So he's religious. I've seen you twirl a rosary or two in your time, Aunt Pol."

"Shut it. Don't fuck anybody." 

The dial tone followed this warning, and Tommy ended the call on his desk phone. With Alfie Solomons around being the cock-blocking arsehole he'd more than once proven himself to be, Tommy thought sourly, there wasn't much chance of his even being able to disobey Polly's orders.

\---

Hour One of Holiday Representation Hell consisted of two tremendously terrible courgette gyoza, a peach-and-satsuma nightmare of a blended drink, and two elderflower ciders in quick succession to rinse out the taste of both. It also consisted of Tommy smiling and nodding as a number of representatives of small labels that wouldn't see next year paraded themselves past him, pressing flesh and telling him their names with voices of great import. Tommy made jokes that didn't land half the time, but watched them all laugh anyway.

Hour Two of Not-Christmas Carnival of Nonsense saw the introduction of wasabi cheese straws (somehow more tasty than the gyoza, and Tommy had one in his mouth at all times through that hour), another cider, and a few shots of green apple soju. Luca Changretta followed him around for at least twenty minutes trying to sell him on fruit wines, and Tommy finally promised to try his blueberry merlot before hiding in the kitchen for the rest of the hour and feeling up one of the servers through her sensible cotton pants. She ate the rest of his cheese straw and he retreated once the coast was clear.

Hour Three of Whatever It Was, the peach-and-satsuma nightmare had become much more tolerable with the addition of most of a bottle of peach schnapps, and Tommy watched a short parade of those small label representatives conga out the back door. 

"What are they called?"

Tommy blinked, raising his eyebrows as he turned and found Alfie Solomons standing next to him, munching a wasabi cheese straw as if it were a stalk of hay and himself the laziest cow in the pasture. "Pardon? What? What are who called? Make sense, Alfie."

Alfie snickered and nodded at the tail end of the line. "They all gave you their names when you glad-handed them, love, and you looked oh-so-terribly interested in each one. I'll give you five pound and a kiss if you can tell me the name of even one of the poor blighters."

"Why would I bother to remember their names?" Tommy said, irritated, and looked around for where he'd put down his drink. "It's a party. Bad manners to expect proper business at a party. If they had any sense they'd give me business cards."

Tommy spun back towards Alfie, startled to find the man's fingers delving into one of the back pockets of his jeans … and extracting a little sheaf of business cards. "You mean these?" Alfie said, then laughed and pitched them in the air. Tommy made no move to stop him, only groused, "The serving staff won't thank you for that, Mr. Solomons."

Alfie made a noise that Tommy would swear he'd heard a high-fantasy tree make in a movie once, and took Tommy's hand in his own -- warm, surprisingly deft, with a crown tattoo near the thumb that Tommy'd somehow failed to notice before -- and brought it to his lips. For one heart-stopping moment Tommy thought the daft bugger was going to kiss his fingertips, but all Alfie did was brush the very end of his nose above Tommy's fingers and intone, "...and you've already ingratiated yourself to the serving staff from the aroma of it, eh, darling?"

Eyes blazing, Tommy snatched his hand back and rubbed it against his shirt. "Pick those up," he snapped, pointing at the cards scattered on the floor. "Really, Alfie. Some fucking manners."

A low chuckle followed on Tommy's heels as he marched away, in search of a fresh drink and maybe some fresh air. His face was feeling awfully hot, for some reason, all of a sudden.

\---

Hour Four of the Wonderful Year-End Festivities found Tommy performing his best booze-related trick for a captive and somewhat plastered audience: lopping the cork off a bottle of mid-range champagne with a short saber brought expressly to the party for that purpose. Tatiana shrieked with triumph when he managed to pull off the feat, champagne geyersing from the neatly broken neck of the bottle in dry-scented frothing excitement, and flung her arms around his neck to claim a very wet and vodka-fumed kiss. 

"All Tatiana's idea, I assure you," Tommy told the remaining celebrants as they applauded him and he brandished both bottle and saber around. "In fact she's the one planned this whole party. A round of applause, ay, for Tatiana?"

The gathered people obliged, and Tommy handed off the bottle but kept the saber as he trailed over to the decimated cake in the shape of a squat beer keg and used the sword to hack off some frosting for himself. He bore it carefully outside, using a case of bottled water to prop the door open, and leaned against the railing of the stairway landing to swipe his thumb through the clot of frosting and stick it pensively in his mouth. 

The party hadn't been that bad, all told, apart from that fucking courgette repeating on him and the hopeful looks some of those nameless reps had been shooting him all night. The server girl with the sensible knickers had caught his eye and it was clear she'd be up for it, if he wanted a go. And she was pretty, with curly hair dyed some sort of pale purple and a snub nose and freckles across her dark skin. 

But, Tommy thought bleakly as he bit frosting from his thumb, there was just something … wrong. Something missing. And the thought of ending the night as he'd ended so many others, making the trek back to his quiet, junk-filled flat with a bottle of gin to fall exhaustedly asleep on the settee and wake up to dry toast and jelly, it was … well, it was depressing. And Tommy was getting heartily tired of feeling depressed.

He lifted the saber with the thought of bringing it whooshing down again so that the gobbet of frosting on the end would sluice off, somewhere down three floors to hit the ground, but a hand grabbed his wrist and -- dammit -- here was Alfie Solomons again, peering at Tommy in the dim light. "Steady on, sweetie," Alfie said, "don't want to disappoint the cleaners more than you already have, eh?" He nodded towards the party, now in its decided downswing. "That girl you had as an aperatif has gone off with one of the Young Bolsheviks--"

"Young Turks, you mean?"

"No, red's back in fashion, it's very woke to talk about the evils of capitalism at the drop of a knitted hat these days." Alfie grinned, twisting the saber out of Tommy's unresisting grip and scraping the frosting off on the railing before sliding the sword into his belt.

"Ridiculous," Tommy said, although whether that was about the saber, Alfie's wearing it, or his farcical claim about young people and their politics, he didn't care to draw a bead on. But that hollow feeling had eased, somehow, and Tommy was suddenly in no hurry to get back inside. "You don't look the slightest bit drunk. Have you turned teetotaller, Alfie?"

His companion shrugged, heavy shoulders rolling under t-shirt and plaid. "I don't get sloppy at company hurrahs, love," he said. "Hard to erase that picture when you're back at the grindstone trying to cut deals with suppliers and distributors. I save my getting squiffy for when I'm with friends."

"And you've got some," Tommy scoffed. "Friends."

"Not all the ones I'd like." Alfie reached into the breast pocket of his plaid shirt and pulled out a cellophane bag tied with twine, holding it up by the cinched bit to swing in front of Tommy's face before Tommy took it and opened it, taking out one of the rings inside and laying it in his palm before looking at Alfie, perplexed. 

"What's this?"

"Oh, come on now, Thomas -- I know you Shelbys grew up the ragamuffins on your street, but surely even you, the benighted orphans, had biscuits once in a while? A chocolate finger or two? A fucking Jammie Dodger on the High Holy Days or whatever your kind celebrates when you're not busy moaning and rending your garments?"

Tommy scowled, closing his hand over the bag and -- just barely -- easing up his grip enough not to crush the remaining rings of cookie it held. "High fashion party rings," Tommy said after a moment of studying the one in his palm. Begrudgingly. The damn thing had  _ flower petals _ as decoration. He looked up at Alfie. "Why on earth--"

\--and then he was being kissed, and Alfie tasted somehow of fizzy lemonade and smelled of cake frosting and hops, and his hand was cupping Tommy's jaw (so deft! Who would have thought) and stroking the crest of his cheekbone with one thumb.  _ His mouth is like a peach _ , Tommy thought stupidly as he breathed and opened up and swayed into Alfie's space.  _ Or maybe a satsuma _ .

Alfie's lips closed and he smiled, not moving away, staying close with Tommy in his space. "Been wanting to do that all fucking night," he rumbled. "Longer, if I'm honest."

"Make some fucking sense," Tommy said, because damned if he was gonna give in that easily to this. He curved his palm enough that the scalloped edges of the delicate biscuit nipped slightly at his skin and said, "you never liked me. I never liked  _ you _ . It's a happily mutual distaste we've maintained for each other."

Alfie made a hurt, indignant noise. "You wot! I know for a fact that I've been nothing but lovely to you, sweetie, sheer loveliness on a sodding stick."

"You're in my phone as 'that loser who keeps texting me,' and I'm in your phone as 'how about no.'"

Alfie considered this for a moment. "Aside from that." He laughed and took Tommy's hand, curling his fingers over into a fist until the biscuit he was holding snapped, in one place, then two, then crushed into more pieces than Tommy could tell without opening his hand to look. "Don't tell me you'll let a little thing like that stand in the way of what could be a bloody mind-blowing shag for the both of us, Tommy. After I brought you a little prezzie and all."

"Which you've just ruined."

There's three more." But Alfie looked fainly contrite, letting Tommy unfurl his hand while still keeping his own beneath it. Tommy sniffed and tossed his head imperiously, the smell of sugar seeping up from the warmth of his palm. 

"How about no," Tommy said, and ducked his head, licking up crumbs and icing and petals like a horse nosing around for a sugar cube, licking the gritty bits down onto Alfie's fingers, grabbing his wrist and turning his hand over, sucking down hard on that crown tattoo as he listened to Alfie sucking in his breath like a dying man.

Straightening, Tommy slid his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowed, lips parted, eyes hooded as he regarded Alfie steadily. "Did you pick up those business cards like I told you?" he asked, voice low and measured, thrumming in his throat. "Like a good little boy?"

Alfie reached into his back pocket, crumbs and spit smearing against his jeans, and brought out the slightly crumpled wad of cards, holding them pinched between thumb and forefinger. "Mmmm," Tommy hummed, and knocked his hand against Alfie's wrist, sending the slips of cardstock fluttering over the rail as he grabbed the back of Alfie's neck and kissed him, deep and wanting, all thoughts of shame or restraint sent down to the ground three floors under.

A beat passed, and then Alfie growled, the saber clatering against the concrete barrier when he shoved Tommy against the wall, hips crowding in against him, cock thick and promising when he rolled his groin into Tommy's and felt the answering rise there. "That  _ loser _ , eh?" Alfie muttered, nipping hard at Tommy's jawline. "I'll make you eat those words along with the rest of your biscuits, pet, see if I don't before the night's through."

"You can make me do whatever you want, Mr. Solomons," Tommy said primly, knuckles white as he gripped the back of Alfie's belt, clung to the back of his collar, cellophane crinkling into the nape of Alfie's neck. "Dip your fucking toe into the secular festivities."

"I'll be dipping more than that, Tommy," Alfie said, with a firm thrust that drove Tommy's breath right out of him.

Maybe he'd have to ask Pol where he could find himself one of those mistletoe jumpers.


End file.
